Animals of Mastacani

I think this is the prettiest bug. It was shiny and dark red. I found it in a lady's shoe.





Here is a cow, they travel by streets too in Mastacani.








Here are baby chickens.






Here are donkey pulling a cart, they are so slow compared to horses and they smell.




Here are horse taking a break in the shade during market day (every Sunday morning). I see them all the time, but there are LOTS of them on market day. I feel tense every time a car weaves through the carts, because the carts are slower, but there's only 1 lane in each direction!



Here you're got turkey, and baby turkey.





Here you have a curled up, non-venomous Romanian snake, and there's a video down below.




Here you've got cats, most of them live outdoors in the country. They're hug-able and they keep pests away and the have their space.





Here you've got the cockatils, and they look exactly like the types in the US (these belong to my neighbor, as well as the cats).





Here is her parakeet (he looks like my bird Shifty!!! But he's not as cute, and I'm not being bias).

Similarities between Romanians and Chinese

Every year,..the weekend after Easter (Orthadox Easter), the Romanians celebrate for the dead by eating and they stick a candle in plates of the same food they eat for lunch for the dead.
I'm not sure if the food we ate were traditional foods:
Sarmaluta (small bundles of savory grounded meat, wrapped in grape leaves and grilled).
Rice with sugar and lemon and orange peel.
Snizle (I think it's German originated? and it's pork in batter, deep fried.
Chicken boiled in oil with carrots, potatoes, salt, cabbage, and some spices.

In Chinese culture we do a similar thing in the spring, where we take prepared food: boiled eggs, deep fried salted pork, a whole chicken, alcohol, sugar can, chinese bread, and fireworks and we put the food over the grave (to symbolize offering the spirit or essence of the food to our ancestors), and then we eat the food and we explode the firecrackers (to ward off bad spirits) and we burn fake money and fake cloth (so the essence of the material can go to the ancestors).

I don't think there's a day to celebrate ancestors in the US holiday calendar, and if there is I've never heard of it or celebrated it.

I am slacking...eye candy for now

Here's some pictures I took. Explanations to be posted, hopefully soon.

Adventurous Day#2

An unexpected adventurous day. It's so full of stuff and sights that I can't write it all down, and I have to wake up early tomorrow so I don't want to stay up too late.

My day involved:
-seeing 15 people standing in the back of a truck drive
-going in the same direction as a herd of cows on the streets and I felt like we were on the streets of Spain
-playing red-rover with kids at a school
-eating snacks for 2 different kids' birthdays
-walking 1/2 km in the wrong direction to find bread, and this was my second trip, I tried once last night, and the shop is seriously, no joke my neighbor on the other side
-talking with a lady across the street and her husband who's pretty passionate about politics and she gave me a whole bag of veggies: garlic, onion, lettuce, pasley, etc...
-I went and visited an old folks home cause they're sort of my neighbor, and it was a fun to see the old peoples' faces when they saw me and I said "Buna Seara" (good evening) to them.
-I jumped in a car with 5 other people and ended up sitting in a political speech where my mayor (he's my mayor, he's my counterpart, and really I don't know much about the other dudes running, I want my guy to win, but as a foreigner, I have to act semi neutral about it) was talking. I tried to look composed and attentive, when I was hungry (I was...enticed to come as I was going home to dinner) and cold.
-I fed my left overs to cats and dogs of my neighbor (that's what we do with left overs here). Secretly I saved pieces of meat just for them cause they're soooooo cute and friendly! Even though they live outside and the dog is permanently chained.
-I tried to time how long it would take me to walk over 2km from my house to the Primaria (mayor's office where I will work 1 or 2 days a week), and people kept trying to give me rides. It was a nice day (I took lots of pictures), and I was saying hi to all the old people standing outside their homes, and I even stopped a few times to carry a conversation. After the Mayor passed me twice, I didn't argue and I got a ride the last half. I am going to guess it takes me 45 minutes to walk to work.

That was my day.
Tomorrow I am going to Chirafti #2 to listen to a Romanian class during an "inspection" by the government, and then to Mastacani #1 for a tutoring test run with a teacher there.

There are 4 primary schools in Mastacani comuna: Chirafti #1 and #2, Mastacani#1 and #3. Mastacani #2 is a gardanita [gar-den-eeezha] (kindergarden).

I also saw an engineer dressed in business clothes, with a briefcase hope into a horse drawn cart. That was funny.

Favorite Food things I miss

Did I mention besides there not being marshmallows (wow, I always thought it was marshmEllows!), there's no Oreas here!

I Love oreas! I can eat a whole costco sized box in a day! And costco apple pies MmMmm!
There's also no chocolate chip cookies! and I haven't seen any oatmeal cookies! because it's actually semi difficult to find oatmeal too!
And I haven't seen any brown sugar to make these oatmeal cookies!


They do have pringles though and cream savers, and a ridiculous variety of salami, mustard, ketchup, and chocolate.
There's sweet mustard, spicy, salty, dark, light, etc...

No one has to send me these things, I mean I eat enough as it is, and it's only my 1st week still at my site. I'm just saying there's stuff I miss.
In terms of Chinese snacks I miss...yeah, they don't exist here. Dried squid, grass jelly, mochi ice cream, red bean paste I'm probably not going to find it.
Maybe in the near future though, I mean, I did see 5 Asian boys wander through town, so there's gotta be Chinese junk food coming too.

Treated like Royalty

Lunch: They, the mayor and his wife, asked where my lunch was and I said since I was stuck in Galati I didn't have time to make one, but I'd bring one tomorrow.
The wife whips out a table cloth, female coworkers clear off a desk in front of a computer, mayor's wife dishes out 3 pieces of grilled chicken onto a porcelain plate that came out from somewhere, Leno cuts me fresh bread, Nina from another office comes out with a plate of salt, the mayor's wife washes and cuts radishes, a fork and a knife is set before me with a folded napkin and a moistened hand towel, there is another knife for cutting more bread off the loaf, and the mayor's wife gives me 4 finger deserts that she just got as a gift from a bakery. It was great team work right there and it took maybe 6 minutes to put together, and inside I was giggling cause it was a little ridiculous, in the kindest way possible.
I felt like a pampered princess...I am not a princess, I understand I am a guest, but are all guest treated like this?
BATHROOM:
Here I experience those stereotype Peace Corps moments you see in pictures, and you can all imagine:
I wanted to use the restroom at the Primaria for the first time, I knew it was a hole in the ground type, but I had to go. I asked someone where it was, and I was handed a roll of paper and escorted around the building to the outhouse.
A group of kids ...I guess were I don't know why they were there, but the were just outside the mayor's office and they saw us and they surrounded me and asked me questions.
I needed to use the restroom and there's 3 stalls facing the open, and no small corner wall or curtains.
There were about 20 kids that were just surrounding me....so I told my escort: her name is Mihaela and she works at the librarian at the Primaria, that I didn't want to go anymore.
It was cute, but yeah...I just had to hold it in until I got home.

Too: fun/semicrazy/potential scary adventure, not to share

So, I know I just slapped on a whole bunch of stuff on this blog over the weekend, due to the fact that I have internet and I can sit in front of the computer for longer periods of time.

But I had an adventure this weekend, and really I can't not blog it. There are lots of things I want to blog about, like culture differences and odd things I see and then how I react to them, like the fact that my physician in Mastacani I saw walking around in a fuzzy white bathrobe in front of the Mayor's office on Friday.

I wasn't that weirded out, I think I'm desensitized from ...college? but I do remember thinking *she is such a valued professional in this little village, like the mayor, who wears a leather jacket and jeans and tennis shoes all the time, she can wander around in a bathrobe and it's okay.*
People get casual in the US too, I mean, a few years back, kids all wore pjs to school, and some still do.

I later remembered that I was told Lots of doctors do that here, or at least it's actually part of the doctor dress code here!!
And while at first, it's odd and kinda creepy, it does make sense later because hospitals here aren't the perfect temp all the time like the US, and these places do get very very cold, so doctors have got to stay warm.

Another thing I find "different" is that the first questions people will straight out ask you/me are: how old are you? how much do you make? do you have a husband? boyfriend? no, not one in the states, one in Romania? why not?

It's just slightly different because these aren't usual things strangers ask in the US, not in CA at least.

Okay: Now STORY

Saturday was normal: I woke, cooked, ate, and cleaned a lot. Oh, I was invited to Luciana's house for lunch. Her whole family from all over, even from Italy were back and they invited me to eat with them. It was fun, there were happy kids, and there were lots of smiles and they were very welcoming. I left about 2 because I told them I had things to do.
The mayor's wife just asked me to keep this place clean, so I wanted to make time to do it all. Dusted, vacuumed, glass, wood, rug, etc...I wanted Sunday free too.
My plans for Sunday: wake up, go to the piata, go to Galati and just chat with Emily and Nils and maybe an older PVC Marie (who's in Group 21 and leaving in less than 2 months, she's also in CED and she lives in Galati), and then go home, use the internet and go to bed.
What REALLY happened:




I woke up late, went to the piata (I saw LOTS of horse drawn carts, there's patches of trees, and there's the piata on Sundays) and talked to random people and introduced myself, but the piata was closing and I was brave enough to go there by myself, but it would have been better to have a friend with me the first time and to introduce me to people, I bought bananas, and on my way back to my apartment I stopped by Luciana's house to ask her for logistics about Galati: which maxi taxi to take, how much does it cost, how to get around town, etc, etc..
She then invited me to lunch, and her dad, and it's fried fish with lemon and pepper...so I had to stay =) and one of her brother's family was still there too, so I got to share the whole thing with them: why I'm here, how I got in, where I'm from, is hollywood there, etc... That was cool.

Luciana, my self appointed bodyguard, was actually heading to Galati too, and while I wanted to be independent, I saw wisdom with going with her the first time. After talking over lunch, we decided to meet at 2:30 to leave for Galati by maxi taxi (so I could see how it was done). When I get home, my neighbor sees me and her daughters (about 14 and 16) and they are BBQing chicken and they want me to try some soup, cheese, chicken with this sauce, and mamaliga, so....I was in their kitchen, but I told them I had to meet Luciana and I wasn't hungry, they gave it all to me in plates, and they helped carry it to my apt so I could eat it later.
At 2:30 Luciana is by my door and we go to Galati by car (oh well), and then I get dropped off where Marie and Emily and Nils tell me go to.
Marie is having a luncheon with people from their church (disclaimer: all this stuff is my own personal experience/opinions and not reflection of peace corps and such) (When you're in Peace Corps you can't have kids during service and you cannot preach your religion...or convert other volunteers. It's actually really nice to know that PC is protecting you, because some people can be pushy about that kind of stuff), anyway, they had a ...Hawaiian poured salad? (rice, with milk and butter sauce, pineapples, green onion, flaked coconut, and chicken), a giant salad and Mormon taramisu (the same but without the rum and the coffee, because Mormons are discouraged from eating those kind of things).

Me, sister Bryson, Elder Bryson, Emily, Nils, Brent, Marie

Basically I had 3 lunches that day.
Anyway, after that lunch, which was fun and I had a great time talking to Sister and Elder Bryson and Brent, and EmilyNils, and Marie, Marie took Emily and Nils to the right maxitaxi to get home, and then she took me to get a hair dryer in the city, and we went to get me a maxi taxi. .....

For some reason...taxis end early on Sundays, we're not actually sure there were any going out to the villages on Sunday.
After standing there for over 45 mins, until 7:30pm, we gave up and this decision was made:
I would stay overnight at Marie's, even though she had no mattress (which I really don't care about), and I would try to take a taxi home Monday morning before I had work at 8am.

I could have called my bodyguard and I'm sure either she or my counterpart of someone would have come and gotten me...but on a scale of 1-10 (10 being worried or scared) I was 2.
I don't know, I trusted Marie (even thought I only really met her that day) but she's a PCV, and if I was late for work people would understand that there's no schedule What-so-ever for maxi taxi's here (maxi taxis are large vans that drive back and forth between locations, kind of like the vans at Poly that took you directly home), and I joined Peace Corps....what else should I have expected.

After we gave up on the maxi taxi deal, we were planning on how to get me to work the next morning, and I remembered that Brent (the guy I met during lunch) said that he'd driven by my yellow bloc before, and that he drove past my place at the same time I usually started walking to work. Perfect!!!! So Marie got Brent's number, and called him up, and asked for a favor, and we got me a ride for the next day. ALL solved!

After all the logistics were done, we chill-laxed and Marie showed me all of Galati basically, we met up with 3 of here friends later and we were introduced to the Danube River.

1 of those friends was someone from the US and as much of a tourist as I was: as seen by the pictures below. There's me, the tourist, and Marie =D


I look like Spider Girl. *you hear theme song for spider man*

Who needs alcohol do to silly and dumb things?

There were mosquitoes at Marie's place, but I donned a pair of rented pants, washed my face, covered myself with mosquito repellent, and went to bed (oddly, there's no mosquitoes in my apt, but 5 I saw at here place!!!) I do have netting over my windows.
Oh and we pillow talked (that's what girls, and cool boys do) and I called my mom to wish her "Happy Mother's day," using Marie's stuff! That generous Marie!

We both, not morning people, woke up at 6:15am! and I got my ride to Mastacani.
Yay for Brent!!!
Yay for Marie!! She said repeatedly that she felt bad about me not getting a ride back, she feels responsible because she's the older and wiser Volunteer and she let me down, NOT SO!
I didn't ask people what time the taxi's started and ended, so it was my responsibility to ask those things.
Anyway, it was actually really fun. I am tired, but my day was great on the whole! On top of feeding me, giving me stuff for sleeping with, gave me a tooth brush!, and letting me use her laptop and Mess credits to call my family! Marie gave me like 9 books too!!! What a Gal! Iubiesc reading!! ( I love reading!)

I got make up on, and the right shoes, and my nice trench coat on before work. I ate ice cream, and cookies, and .....I am treated like a princess.

Look who else I saw in Galati o_O
I had to take pictures for proof:

I am not a spy! (I am just a talented stalker with a point-shoot canon camera).